Archive for March 22nd, 2012

This starts to piss me off more and more as time goes by: Paleo dieters baking stuff using heaps of almond flour. You go to a Paleo recipe site and what you see half the time is variations of cookies and breads. As for those who make an almond-based pizza? Two cups of almond flour are required for the base alone! And don’t let me start about nut butters.

The point of the matter is, nuts should only be consumed in moderation. They’re very high in O-6, and they have lots of phytates and anti-nutrients. On top of all that, almonds used to be poisonous in the Paleolithic times, the kinds of almonds we have today are highly selected. When we are eating such high quantities of nuts, we endanger our health, and we generate a new wheat-like threat. The older varieties of wheat, when were eaten in moderation they weren’t such a big problem, but today, we have in our hands a selected super-gluten which can be found in almost every food.

Ask yourself this question: Would you eat two full cups of almonds for dinner? Most of the time, the answer is “no”. So why the heck would you eat a 12″ pizza made of just that? The almond to almond flour ratio is 1:1, you see. These “allowed” flours (almond, coconut, flax, and tapioca), must be consumed in small quantities, and rarely. Birthdays, holidays, PMS… And try to mix these flours when the recipe allows it, so you at least spread the amount of the various anti-nutrients into smaller quantities.

Personally, I make almond flour-based cheese crackers twice a month (used only with goat/sheep/buffalo fermented dairy, which *is* healthy). We eat 1-3 crackers a day, which is equivalent to 3-5 almonds. A healthy amount of nuts per day, that is. The last time I baked something for indulging reasons was for a coconut birthday cake in January, six almond cookies in November (half a recipe), and coconut donuts in September (threw away half of them, baked too many). As for bread and pizza (any kind), I haven’t had these at all since I started Paleo in September 2011.

In other news, I started a Pinterest group, with categorized Paleo/Primal recipes. So far the dessert category has more pins than the other boards, just because the sites I visited mostly indulged on such comfort food. But I will be correcting this soon, as I add more pins.